Scope: The Pediatric Pain Management Standard will address pain management for children in Canada, defined as those from infancy to late adolescence and including healthy children and those with acute and chronic disease. It will cover acute, procedural, post-surgical, and chronic pain management as well as parental and caregiver engagement in pain management.

Rationale: In partnership with Solutions for Kids in Pain – SKIP, Health Standards Organization (HSO) is convening a Standards Working Group to develop a Pediatric Pain Management Standard. Pain affects children and families in Canada directly and has a significant indirect impact on the healthcare system. Addressing children’s pain is critical due to its pervasiveness; the degree of suffering it causes children and families; its associated health care avoidance; its risk for opioid misuse, mental illness, and chronic pain in adulthood; and the high costs to the Canadian health system, estimated at $60 billion per year for chronic pain.

Although access to effective pain management is a fundamental human right, many Canadian children do not have ready access to quality pain care. Although Canada is a leader in pediatric pain research, this knowledge is not routinely implemented in practice. This standard will facilitate the uptake, use, and implementation of pain research and knowledge in Canadian healthcare settings, to the benefit of children and their families.

Timeline: Estimated completion date is April 2021.

Posted on: February 27, 2020

Contact Information: Organizations interested to support the development of this standard or wanting to be consulted as a stakeholder during the development process may contact us at publications@healthstandards.org. Individuals, including patients, providers, health leaders and the members of the public are encouraged to provide comments through stakeholder organizations.

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